Certain embodiments of the present invention relate to an ultrasound machine for tracking and tagging moving structure. More particularly, certain embodiments relate to the tracking and tagging of moving cardiac tissue for visualization of expansion and contraction processes of the tissue.
Echocardiography is a branch of the ultrasound field that is currently a mixture of subjective image assessment and extraction of key quantitative parameters of cardiac wall function has been hampered by a lack of well-established parameters that may be used to increase the accuracy and objectivity in the assessment of, for example, coronary artery diseases. Stress echo is such an example. It has been shown that the subjective part of wall motion scoring in stress echo is highly dependent on operator training and experience. It has also been shown that inter-observer variability between echo-centers is unacceptably high due to the subjective nature of the wall motion assessment.
Much technical and clinical research has focused on the problem and has aimed at defining and validating quantitative parameters. Encouraging clinical validation studies have been reported, which indicate a set of new potential parameters that may be used to increase objectivity and accuracy in the diagnosis of, for instance, coronary artery diseases. Many of the new parameters have been difficult or impossible to assess directly by visual inspection of the ultrasound images generated in real-time. The quantification has required a post-processing step with tedious, manual analysis to extract the necessary parameters.
Assessment of the expansion and contraction of moving anatomical structure is no exception. Time intensive post-processing techniques or complex, computation intensive real time techniques have been tried in the prior art.
A need exists for a simpler, real-time technique for visualization and assessment of cardiac wall motion by viewing the expansion and contraction of the cardiac tissue.